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“I wish I could stop loving you.”
She says it softly, but it cuts Sara to the core.
“Nyssa,” she gapes. “I-“
“I have adored you since I met you, Sara. My love for you has consumed me. It poisoned my relationship with my father. It split my loyalties, clouded my judgment. It has gutted me. And yet I love you still. /And you have moved on.”
Sara can barely breathe. Nyssa recounts this all so calmly, but every word tears at Sara’s heart.
“I instructed you to do so, habibti. I do not begrudge you it. I simply wish I could do the same.”
“Nyssa, I-“ Sara repeats, at a loss for anything else.
“Director Sharpe seems quite capable,” Nyssa continues, filling the void. “Your team is quite loyal. You have made a wonderful life for yourself. I am-“
“Stop it! Stop,” Sara breaks.
“Sara?”
“Stop talking. Stop saying it,” Sara insists.
It’s all moving too fast.
She thought she was happy, truly.
And then they stumbled upon the unlikely trio of Nyssa, Thea, and Roy, at the tail end of a Lazarus Pit hunt in 2019.
It all came rushing back.
The breathless feeling of being in Nyssa’s presence. The way they fit so perfectly side by side, still finished each other’s sentences after all this time. She’d been flustered, making rookie mistakes, as the Legends fought at Nyssa’s side. But Nyssa covered her seamlessly. Like she didn’t have to try.
She’s not sure if it’s all the time drift, but Sara can barely remember why exactly she and Nyssa parted.
The guilt is overpowering. At what she’s done to Nyssa. At what she might be about to do to Ava.
Because she loves Ava, she truly does. She makes her feel normal and safe. She’s beautiful and funny and strong.
But it was different with Nyssa. It is different with Nyssa. It always has been, different, with Nyssa.
Now that she is reminded of that, she doesn’t know if she can go back.
“May I say anything?” Nyssa asks after the awkward silence.
Well, it’s not awkward. It should be, but it’s not.
“No,” Sara says, still trying to get her thoughts in order, not needing Nyssa to add even more confusion to the mix.
Nyssa dutifully closes her mouth and rocks back a little on her heels. It’s freaking adorable, all the more so because it’s such an unguarded action. The kind Nyssa has always saved for her alone.
It’s not helping.
Because here is the scenario she’s found herself in:
She loves Ava. She is with Ava. She has been with Ava for awhile now.
But god if she isn’t still head over heels, souls bound together, desperately in love with Nyssa. No matter how hard and how long she’s suppressed it.
Nyssa loves her still. Has never stopped.
But she wants to stop. She just admitted as much now. Time is a bitch with a cruel sense of humor, throwing them back together like this.
“I love you, too,” she finally says, making her as cruel as time itself. “I always have.”
Nyssa can’t hide her surprise.
Others have always found her hard to read, but Sara can tell her mood by just one look at her expressive dark eyes, at the minute movements of her soft mouth, he very way she holds her spine. It’s intimacy in its purest, deepest form, and Sara can’t believe she forgot how much she missed it, craves it. Forgot how, as much as she wanted it to, what she has with Ava has never felt like this.
Nyssa’s surprise cuts deep, too. That Nyssa doubted her Beloved’s love for her, for however long it has been for Nyssa.
Nyssa doesn’t reply verbally. Because Sara told her she can’t.
Sara meets those liquid eyes, takes in the artificial light shining on that silky hair.
(Shorter now. It suits her.)
She knows then that she has to break Ava’s heart. It doesn’t feel like this. It never will. Ava deserves someone who feels this way about her. And now that Sara has tasted it again, she can’t go back.
Well, not tasted. And maybe she won’t get to taste it. Her.
Nyssa wants to be free of her.
But Sara still can’t go back.
“I’m sorry,” Sara says. “I’m sorry if that makes it harder for you. Harder to let me go. But I never stopped loving you. And selfishly, I don’t want you to, either. I don’t mean to torture you. I hate hurting you. Nothing else has ever come close to this, though.”
Sara pauses.
“You can talk now,” she says, gently, realizing she has once again abused the power she has over Nyssa.
No wonder Nyssa wants to be free.
“You are with another,” Nyssa says tightly, finally allowed to speak.
“Yeah, it’s not fair to her either.”
“What do you want, habibti?” Nyssa asks desperately. “Whatever it is, you know I will give it to you.”
Sara closes her eyes.
“No. What do you want, Nyssa?”
Sara expects the question to stump her. Nyssa is unaccustomed to it.
“You. I’ve always wanted you,” Nyssa surprises her. “I’ve always been willing to sacrifice everything for it.”
“But you just said-“
“It is a lonely place to be alone. I do wish – I have wished – to be able to stop. I have never been able to do so. Loving you has brought me great pain. But it has also brought me great joy. And great freedom.”
Sara feels the tears, won’t let them fall. Ever eloquent, she replies:
“Yeah. Me too.”
Nyssa laughs, warm and throaty.
“You have changed much. And yet not at all.”
Sara smirks herself, lets out a sigh.
“What are we gonna do, Nyssa?”
Because solving things together has always come naturally to them, has always been the way.
“You are not a free agent, able to make that decision,” Nyssa says plainly. Most would never notice how much that statement pains Nyssa. Sara sees it clearly.
“No. I’m not. Right now.” She takes a deep breath. “Why couldn’t it ever be easy?”
“I’ve found few things truly worth doing ever are.”
Nyssa has a soft, gentle, ghost of a smile.
Sara’s heart flips. She doesn’t know what happens next, exactly. Before she can even think about the future she needs to let Ava go: it would be cruel to them both to keep going now that Sara remembers what this feels like.
“Can you wait just a bit longer?” Sara asks. “Just, put a pause on trying to stop? I’m not saying you have to promise me anything just-“
“Captain Lance,” Gideon interrupts, as always with that terrible timing. “You are needed on the bridge.”
Sara groans.
“We’ll talk again, habibti. You have responsibilities to attend to.”
“I know, but-“
“Go,” Nyssa says gently, “We will talk again.”
“Captain Lance,” Gideon insists. “Dr. Palmer has-“
“Done something stupid, I’m sure,” Sara interrupts with rolling eyes.
She’s got a lot to do, of course. But she steals one more glance at Nyssa, drinking in the feeling, the confidence she gives her.
She can figure it all out. She knows she can, as long as Nyssa is waiting for her.
As long as there’s a chance to feel this again.
***
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